


call it magic, when i'm next to you

by cherrykirsch



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Cute, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Introspection, Kissing, M/M, Mementos (Persona 5), Romantic Fluff, Tenderness, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 05:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21265673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrykirsch/pseuds/cherrykirsch
Summary: Akira has never been one for eccentricity.And then he met Yusuke.





	call it magic, when i'm next to you

**Author's Note:**

> listen to coldplay's magic for the feelings of this fic!!
> 
> enjoy!

Akira has never been one for eccentricity.

The only thing about him that has very stood out (or, rather, up) about him was his curly, unruly hair. Everything else was textbook at being plain, blending in, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible; the glasses were just an extra memento of that, black and every so proper, and not at all needed.   
He thought they made his sharp jaw and grey eyes look kinder somehow, rounder and softer and more… well, teenager-ish, still wide-eyed and in awe of the world instead of having seen some of the harsher realities of the modern world.

His mother had smiled when she saw the glasses on him before he left, he hadn’t made a big deal out of it after all and tried to stay as quiet as he could with his father around every corner, and then she had walked over and smoothed down his unruly hair and said, “You’re so grown up.”

At the time he had felt almost proud, and now he just felt overwhelmingly bitter. 

What other seventeen year-old had seen the inner workings of a corrupt justice system? What other seventeen year-old was being passed off to someone in the big city after being kicked out of school for defending someone?

Adults didn’t know much, he had come to realise. And this realisation was only further cemented when he and Ryuji infiltrated Kamoshida’s Palace, dug into his debauchery of sins and stood at Ann’s side as Kamoshida was the one cowering at her feet in the place of all the students who had cowered at his.  
Adults were cowardly, adults took advantage of kids and adults lied about it and protected other adults they knew were guilty of it. Even now, Akira can’t help but smirk slightly when the Shadows beg and plead for mercy, it seemed therapeutic, almost.

And when he really thought about it, the only time he truly felt free was in the Metaverse, his friends at his side and the wind in his hair, where he could smile and laugh and let loose in ways he never had before. In the real world he was proper.

Akira never tried to stand out, and then he met Yusuke.

Yusuke captured his senses in a way nobody else had before, he smelled of paint and fresh lilies, and with every scrunch of his nose and twitch of his lip and brow his emotion and feeling overflowed out of his every edge; Akira could only speculate that Yusuke’s emotion was the true reason for his beautiful artwork.

He wasn’t conventional, he pursued beauty without a second thought for anything else, and he stood out no matter which way you looked at it. 

Could it have been those two opposing forces driving him towards Yusuke on that trip to Mementos? Two poles forcing the gravity to meet in the centre and force everything down, caught in his throat like the best kind of being tongue-tied, watching as Yusuke stares down into his sketchbook, pencil gliding softly against the grain of the paper, his bottom lip drawn slightly between his teeth.

And his hair is falling in his face and he keeps tossing his head back, not looking up or moving a hand from the paper, and Akira slowly reaches out so as not to startle him and carefully tucks the stray hair behind the string of his mask and Yusuke falters.  
His pencil scratches across the paper like nails on a chalkboard and he looks to Akira from the corner of his eye. Akira’s hand is still on his temple, and he quickly draws it away, tucking it back into his pocket, but Yusuke doesn’t stop looking.

He grins, though his heart is thudding in his chest, and says, “What’s the matter, Fox? Cat got your tongue?”

Yusuke slowly shakes his head. “No…” he begins softly. “But I thought I saw something in your eye… May I draw it?”

“I…” Akira says, faltering over his own surprise. “Of course.”

Yusuke turns a page in his sketchbook. Akira stares into Yusuke’s eyes as Yusuke’s eyes flick between the paper and staring deeply into his own, and it seems like an eternity until Yusuke slowly turns the sketchbook towards him and holds it out.

“This…” He says, sounding almost breathless. “Is the true meaning of desire.”

And the image is of his eye, wide and soft without the glasses, pupil dilated and his brow slightly furrowed but somehow in awe instead of annoyed. Anybody could see the affection it holds, the playful sighs that come with the eccentricity Akira loves and is still getting used to, and he supposes it is desire really.

If that’s what Yusuke wanted.

So he swallows hard and tests the waters. “Desire of what?” He asks softly, with a tenderness that squeezes his own heart.

“Me.” Yusuke says equally as softly and cautiously, staring oh-so deeply into his eyes. “For something from me. Tell me, Joker… What do you desire?”

Akira takes a step closer, enough to close the gap of what feels like miles between them. “A kiss.” He tells Yusuke.

Yusuke raises an eyebrow, seeming almost surprised. “Just a kiss?” He asks.

“Well,” Akira says, a smile tugging at his lips. “A kiss for now.”

Yusuke sighs one of his measured sighs, his eyes falling shut in a way that would’ve seemed annoyed if not for the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “A kiss…” He says softly, pondering to himself, and then he opens his eyes and takes a tentative step closer. “I think I have one to spare.”

Akira’s head dips closer to Yusuke’s, and he can feel the faint hitch in his breathing in the hot hair fanning over his nose and lips. “Thank you, Fox.”

And their lips meet in a kiss that is beautifully organised by the way Yusuke’s lips move and Akira should’ve known that he had already found the beauty in a kidd that should’ve been as messy and inexperienced as he felt. But Yusuke had a way of smoothing over his rough edged and making pearls out of lumps of coal. He ran his tongue over Yusuke’s lip and relished in how he shuddered slightly and pressed slightly closer.

With a kiss, Akira’s confidence in Yusuke was something more special, something that was shared between brushing of fingers and kisses snuck behind walls while everyone else was busy arguing, before, in no time at all, it was their fingers interlocked while out with Ryuji and Ann, Akira’s hand around Yusuke’s shoulder or vise versa and they laughed with Makoto and Haru.

Akira never wanted to be anything more than pretty ordinary in public, and then he met Yusuke.

And eccentricity was never so beautiful.

  
  



End file.
